Cons
Stubborn power button and lock switch. Stylus and dock not included with all models.

Bottom Line

The Motion Computing CL900 tablet offers 7 hours of battery life, handy features, and agile processing, and it's business-friendly to boot. Unfortunately, its big price tag doesn't include the accessories you'll need to make the most of this Windows tablet's features.

Motion Computing has been a part of the tablet market since well before the form factor went mainstream. Its latest device is made for the businesses space, a category in need of a sensibly priced workplace-oriented tablet. The Motion Computing CL900 ($1,125 list at Microsoft Store) combines strong performance with a feature set that remedies some of the Windows 7 touch issues, but to get the most out of the tablet's feature set, you'll probably need to shell out a bit more to pick up some key accessories, like a stylus and a docking station.

Design
The CL900 is a 10-inch tablet, clad in black aluminum with rubber trim. The aluminum frame provides protection, and this rugged tablet is rated to withstand a wide variety of adverse conditions, whether it's shock and vibration, dust or splashed liquids. A layer of Corning Gorilla Glass is bonded to the screen to help prevent scratches and cracks. Behind that Gorilla Glass is a 10.1-inch screen with 1,366-by -68 resolution that supports 720p video playbacka higher resolution than the 1,024-by-600 resolution of the ViewSonic ViewPad 10's ($729 list, 2 stars) .

The screen is designed for finger and stylus input, and it proved to be responsive to both. It can track up to four fingertip inputs at once. While that doesn't compete with the Apple iPad 2 (Wi-Fi + 3G) ($629.00 direct, 4.5 stars), which can track up to eleven touch-points at once, it's a step up from the ViewSonic ViewPad 10, which only supports two-finger gesture controls. The digital pen or stylus available with most - but not all - configurations (or $24.99 through Motion Computing) allows for more precise touch control, especially within the Windows 7 UI, and is ideal for handwriting input (using Window's handwriting recognition program). A small button on the stylus lets you right-click without having to use the clunky "press-and-hold" that you might use with fingertip inputs.

On the right-hand edge of the tablet, you'll find a small button, which opens up a compartment for a stylus. While the idea is clever, the execution seems a little flimsy. The spring-loaded stylus compartment is made of plastic, which feels quite cheap compared with the aluminum frame. Additionally, this compartment is on every CL900 model, whether or not you opt to purchase the the tablet with the bundled stylus option.

The power button, located on the left-hand edge of the tablet, is surprisingly stubborn. The button doesn't move much when pressed, and with no audible or tactile click, it's difficult to tell if you've pressed the button at all. An inch or so down, you'll find another button, which allows you to lock the tablet without having to power it off. Like the power button, the lock button doesn't provide much tactile feedback as to when you've pushed it or not, which could be an intentional part of the design to prevent unwanted button pressing.

Another useful accessory available for the CL900 is a docking station ($188), which provides three USB 2.0 ports (for a total of four) and an Ethernet port. The dock is shaped from a solid piece of metal, fold up and back over itself to create a raised podium-like surface for the tablet to rest on. The tablet sets horizontally in the dock cradle, connecting with Motion Computing's proprietary docking port. This gives the tablet something akin to desktop functionality when used with a keyboard, mouse, and external hard drive. However, the dock's height can't be changed, nor can the angle. Where a docked laptop can still have its screen angle adjusted for visibility, the docked tablet rests fairly flatenough so that you'll probably have to use it while standing up or connect it to an external monitor. That's fine if you're at a retail counter, but not when seated at a desk. The dock does, however, provide a sturdy base for the C900, and the curved podium design leaves room below for stowing an unused keyboard.

Features
The CL900 includes a few features like a USB 2.0 port, a mini-HDMI port for displaying content on an HDTV, and an SD card reader. Internally, you'll find 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0. Our review unit also included Gobi mobile broadband, but be careful when ordering as not all configurations include it.

Like many tablets, the CL900 is equipped with front and back facing cameras. The front facing 1.3-megapixel camera works fine for video chat, so long as you hold the tablet in a landscape orientation. Turn it on its side (portrait orientation), and the camera orientation rotates with you, but the angles are weird. The rear-facing 3-megapixel camera allows you to snap pictures of your surroundings, but probably won't replace your regular digital camera if snapping pictures is a part of your job. These cameras are of a higher quality than those found on the Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 ($849 direct, 4 stars), with its front facing VGA webcam and rear facing 1.3-megapixel camera. They are outstripped by the Toshiba Thrive (Wi-Fi) ($579.99 direct, 3.5 stars), which features a 2-megapixel front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel camera on the back.

Motion Computing also bundled into the CL900 a special tablet-friendly UI called ExoPC. This layer is starkly different from the regular Windows desktop, with icons re-sized for fingertips, and touch-friendly versions of Windows functionality, like a file manager, media player, and web browser. It even has its own App Store.

Performance
The Motion Computing CL900 s equipped with the latest iteration of Intel's Oak Trail processor lineup, the single-core 1.5GHz Intel Atom Z670. Tailor-made to run the 32-bit version of Windows 7, the processor is also designed for small spaces, like the chassis of a slim handheld tablet. Intel's GMA 600 integrated graphics provided graphics support for Web browsing, especially when it came to sites embedded with Flash, and most programs, with the exception of graphics intensive gaming.

In our Cinebench R11.5 processor speed test, the CL900 scored 0.22 points, just ahead of competing systems, like the ViewSonic ViewPad 10 (0.20 points) and Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 (0.18 points). The Intel processor couldn't keep up with the dual-core AMD processor found in the Acer Iconia Tab W500-BZ467 ($549.99 direct, 3.5 stars), which scored 0.39 points. When using the Motion CL900, performance was quite agile compared with other Windows 7 tablets, but even the best Windows tablet will seem clunky compared with competitors using tablet-specific operating systems, like iOS on the iPad 2 or any of the Android tablets running Honeycomb.

The CL900 couldn't complete our SysMark 2007 performance benchmark test due to software compatibility problems, but that's a common issue on Windows tablets. It did, however, run MobileMark 2007, our battery life test. With its 43Wh battery, the CL900 lasted 7 hours 24 minutes, comparable to the Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 (7:42 with a 38Wh battery) and the Toshiba Thrive (7:10), or the iPad 2, which lasted a comparable 7:30 in video rundown tests. It lasted significantly longer than the ViewSonic ViewPad 10 (4:03), but was left in the dust by the nine hours the Panasonic Toughbook U1-Ultra ($3,676.29 direct, 3 stars) garnered with its 21Wh battery.

The Motion Computing CL900 is a competent Windows tablet, and one of the first released with businesses in mind. Unfortunately, a great deal of the usefulness that the CL900 offers is due to accessories that aren't included with every configuration, like the digital stylus and docking station. While the CL900 still offers long battery life, a solid feature set, and decent performance, the ease of use just can't compare to devices that include the necessary extras. The Acer Iconia Tab W500 for example, comes with a docking keyboard and mouse, making it considerably more user-friendly. The Fujitsu Stylistic Q550, the most direct competitor to the CL900, includes an identical stylus, but it's bundled with every configuration of the tablet, offering the benefits right out of the box, regardless of configuration. The Q550's numerous security features and the dramatic difference in price$1,125 as opposed to the Fujitsu's $849 price tagthe Motion Computing CL900 is clearly left behind.

Brian Westover is an Analyst for the Hardware Team, reviewing laptops, desktops, and storage devices.
As a child, Brian was frequently asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?" His answer alternated between...

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